Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 23, 1993                   TAG: 9306230049
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

`BROTHER' IMPRESSES PRESIDENT

Henry Leon Ritzenthaler Ritzenthaler looked uncomfortable, almost overwhelmed during a round of television interviews. But Clinton said he found the man "very appealing and humble - the way he's handled this whole thing."

The president did not say whether he believes Ritzenthaler is related, and aides said Clinton has not discussed the matter in private.

"This is a very personal matter," spokeswoman Dee Dee Myers said.

The president still had not contacted Ritzenthaler, and Myers said Clinton may wait a day or two to give the man "a little space."

Ritzenthaler and his wife, Judith, said they were shocked by the media's interest in their story. "Quite frankly, we would have rather kept it in the family," she told ABC.

Clinton tried to call Ritzenthaler at his Paradise, Calif., home and in New York, where the interviews were conducted. Ritzenthaler told television interviewers he did not return the calls because "I didn't feel that it was my place."

The Ritzenthalers said they wrote Clinton a year ago to learn about Clinton's family history because the California man has heart trouble.

"That's our main reason for doing it and that's our main goal to this day," Ritzenthaler told CNN.

Ritzenthaler said he would like Clinton to acknowledge that they are related.

Ritzenthaler, 55, says he and Clinton Clinton, 46, have the same father: W.J. Blythe. Blythe died a few months before the president was born, and about nine years after Ritzenthaler.

After Blythe died, Clinton's mother remarried and Clinton took the name of his first stepfather, Roger Clinton. Until now, accounts of Clinton's upbringing have said he was Blythe's only son.